Espanola

History

The name "Espanola" has been attributed to a story which dates back to the mid-18th century. The story goes that a First Nations Ojibwa tribe met a man who had travelled far from Spain. The Spanish man, named Frise Espagnol, married a local Anishinaabe (First Nations) of a family living near the mouth of the river and he taught her and their children to speak Spanish. Later, when the French voyageurs and coureurs des bois came upon the settlement and heard fragments of Spanish spoken by the local natives, they remarked "Espagnole", which had been later anglicized to "Espanola", and the river was named the Spanish River. The town of Espanola was sited next to a waterfall on the Spanish River, which was sometimes called Webbwood Falls. Before the existence of the town, a hydropower dam was constructed at the falls to power the pulp and paper mill of the Spanish River Pulp and Paper Company, a subsidiary of the Mead Corporation. A company town, Espanola, was also established for the mill's workers and their families. The town expanded quickly and was soon a bustling centre with a hotel, school and theatre. On January 21, 1910, a Canadian Pacific Railway passenger train derailed off a trestle east of Espanola. Forty-three people died from the railcar's plunge into the icy water of the Spanish River. It was one of the CPR's worst railway accidents. In 1927, Abitibi Power and Paper Company acquired the Spanish River Pulp and Paper Mills from Mead, in a transaction that was subsequently seen to be highly overvalued and having a conflict of interest that was ultimately detrimental to Abitibi's shareholders. Changing economic conditions brought on by the Great Depression forced the closure of the Spanish River facility in 1929. Espanola became a ghost town until the…